


This Time

by noos



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, a little stream of consciousness action?, i have a lot of feelings to process okay, stolen moment before the battle, they make me feel some type of way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 14:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18606145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noos/pseuds/noos
Summary: She closes her eyes, feeling all the emotion consume her. She wills herself to lock everything deep inside of her, trying to slip back into her mask.It doesn’t work as well as she hopes.





	This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anniebibananie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniebibananie/gifts).



> This started out as a headcanon I yelled at Annie and then snowballed into a one shot. The last time I wrote a Gendrya fic, I was really bad at this. I'm still really bad at this, but whatever, I have a lot of feelings to process because I've been waiting 7 seasons for this. 
> 
> Unbeta'd. Oh, and English is still not my first language.
> 
> Title from Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths. And as I write this I'm realizing how much more perfect the song is for this piece GIVEN THE BAND'S NAME.
> 
> Spoilers for 8x02.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She was all ready to get up and leave as soon as they were done, but then his arm had brushed hers as he turned away from her, his breathing evening out before turning to soft snores, and she told herself she’d stay for a few minutes. Just a few minutes to gather herself and get accustomed to the dull ache that had settled between her thighs.

She started drifting in and out of sleep soon after, thoughts of what had just transpired between them washing over her. She could still feel his lips, gentle and hungry against her own. She shivered as she remembered the way he let his fingers trail along her back, leaving goosebumps in their wake. They fit so perfectly together, and it made her stomach fill with terrifying joy and dread just thinking about it.

It was when his fingers starting turning to rotten flesh, cold as ice, bones visible underneath, that she started panicking. She felt trapped, suffocated. Suddenly, she was right outside of Winterfell’s gates, Sansa standing next to Gendry across from her, their skin ashen grey and their eyes so cold and so blue and so dead as they stared at her. Sansa’s fiery Tully hair was as beautiful as ever, but her face was cold, withering in the strong winds. On Gendry’s other side, Jon was clutching Longclaw tightly in his tattered hands, his lifeless eyes murderous as he started walking over to her, Bran’s wheelchair splintered into a million pieces behind him.

It was the thoughts of what was to come that jolted her awake, eyes unseeing at first, almost choking as she tried to remember where she was. She’d turned to him then, reaching out to touch Gendry's arm with the tips of her fingers.

_No. Not things to come. I’ll protect them this time. I’ll protect him._

She couldn’t save him before, when the red woman took him away from her. She was young, impulsive, small. She didn’t know how to wear her skin like armor and forge her mind like one of his weapons. But she did now. She could protect him now. And she would. 

She forces her eyes away from him and gets out of bed, finding her discarded breeches and jerkin on the ground, slipping into her clothes soundlessly. She tucks Needle and her dagger into their sheaths around her waist before she moves to grab the new dragonglass spear Gendry made for her. 

She stands still for a moment, admiring his handiwork and running her fingers lightly over the sharp blade and down the bamboo shaft of the weapon.

She knows he doesn’t want her fighting out there. He told her as much himself, and anyway, she could always read him like an open book, even when she didn’t know it. But he still made her the weapon and she knows he won’t try to stop her. That’s the Gendry she remembers - stubborn as a bull and fiercely protective, but never one to let her be anything but what _she_ wanted to be. 

She swallows past the lump forming in her throat and starts to walk out, but she can't make it all the way outside. Some small (big) part of her is unable to leave him just yet. 

She turns to look at him again, her face softening as she take him in. 

He’d always slept close to her, when they were on the run. A little farther away, at first, sometimes with Hot Pie or Lommy wedged between them. The distance between them grew smaller as time went by and they got closer, and by the time they reached the caves with the brotherhood, his hulking figure was a permanent fixture next to hers at night. She had always had trouble sleeping back then, and more often than not, she’d wind up watching him sleep as thoughts and memories muddled through her head.

But now, looking at him here, she realizes how long it’s been since she’s actually _seen_ him sleep. And she doesn’t remember him ever looking so peaceful. 

They used to sleep on forest beds and rocks and hard grounds when they were little. When they stopped at inns to eat, Hot Pie would try to distract the innkeepers while she and Gendry tried to steal some hay stacks on their way out, for when the night came. They even shared the occasional cot, but those nights were so few and far in between.

He was so restless back then. He always fell into a really deep sleep very quickly, but he never stopped fidgeting at night. While her nightmares kept her awake and paralyzed, his plagued his body every time he closed his eyes. She always wondered who he was fighting in the darkness behind his lids, but he never talked about it in the morning and she never asked him.

He doesn’t look like that now. He is more still than she’s ever seen him, eyes closed softly and lips puckered open. 

He’s _too_ still, she decides after a moment, her heart catching in her throat as she makes her way to stand over him, fingers twitching as she reaches out to touch his neck gently. She removes her hand as soon as she checks his pulse, breathing out a sigh of relief before she chides herself for being so stupid.

She stays there for a few minutes, fighting with herself.

This is not what it was supposed to be like. 

She only wanted to know what it was like, to have her first time before she died. She only wanted that relief. She didn’t expect for it to feel the way it did. She didn’t expect to feel  _him_ the way she did. 

The way he whispered her name right before she kissed him, all soft and broken and reverent, like he had never met anyone more fascinating than her. 

The feeling of his lips against hers, and how he looked at her like she made his world turn. 

He let take the lead, more than happy to comply and wrap himself around her whichever way she wanted him to. Whenever she’d look at him to make sure he wanted this too, that she was doing it right, he only smiled, the crinkles at the corner of his eyes so endearing to her, kissing her wherever he could reach and savoring every minute of their time together. 

When they were done, moments before he fell asleep, he became a little more daring, wrapping his solid arms around her and bringing her closer to him. She’d closed her eyes and allowed herself to be held, trying to process all the conflicting emotions struggling for dominance inside of her. He'd pressed a soft kiss to her pulse point, letting go just as she was reaching out to touch his broad shoulder. She’d let her hand linger in the air for a moment instead, before she turned away from him and clutched his cloak a little closer to her chest.

_Last time you saw me, you wanted me to come to Winterfell. Took the long road, but...  
_

He was here for her. 

She shakes her head as she continues to stand over him, trying to rid herself of all her thoughts. 

She has to walk away now. The dead will be outside soon. But before she does, she allows herself one more moment of weakness. They’re still alive yet.

She steps closer to him and crouches down until her face is level with his, watching him with what she thinks is the same fascinated expression he looked at her with before. This boy she’s known half her life. This boy she thought she would never see again. 

His eyelashes are casting dark shadows against his cheekbones in the light of the flames. She runs a hand through his hair, fingers light as she trails over to his eyebrow and down the side of his face. Her thumb brushes his lips for a brief second. She wants to kiss him again. She wants him to kiss her again.

She closes her eyes, feeling all the emotion consume her. She wills herself to lock everything deep inside of her, trying to slip back into her mask.

It doesn’t work as well as she hopes and she stills leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth before she backs away, forcing her eyes away from Gendry’s sleeping figure and finally walking out of the room.

——

When Gendry wakes up to the sound of a horn echoing in Winterfell's halls, he instinctively reaches to his right, heart dropping when his fingers find only his discarded cloak. He blinks the sleep away as he takes in the empty space beside him.

She’s not here. Of course she’s not here. Some big part of him never expected her to be.

He thinks that he might’ve dreamed it, but his cloak smells like her, and he smiles despite himself, memories flooding through him.

There's no time for this now, he knows. Not when the dead are right outside their doorstep. 

“After,” he promises himself.

When the dead are buried and gone and they have defeated the Night King, he’ll find her. And when he does, he’ll finally tell her how he feels. 


End file.
